Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

[Satori]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

My own pc / the broken/blown up one is definately old as hell.
This one i've been offered tobuy is about 2 years old from a shop called currys. It was in the £500 range at the time. So in pc terms I guess it's old. I just never thought my old pc would be more stable.

Thanks again I'm going to give the cmd thingy's a try.
I tried my internet provider and there is no problems in my area according to them. I think I'll request a new modem router thingy. the one for my internet provider was only capable of hooking up a single pc/laptop/360 at a time. I bought a router thing from a local pc repair shop that now allows 4 things to connect to it plus wireless but never used it.
It never came with a disc though the guy in the shop said it was pretty much plug n play. I've never had a problem with it as such but I've never been able to really identify the brand/model of it. even the name on its casing is mysterious to me.
I imagine that my router thing being as it is probably isn't helping me at all.

I'm sorry to be a pain to you all.

Just to keep you informed I've done the release / renew / flush thing on the pc and my laptop. I'll keeep my eyes open for anything popping up. until then I dont know the difference. My partner is saying the laptop seems to be running faster than normal.


* I had teh error message pop up again / lost connection.

Error connecting to broadband connection, connection through WAN Miniport (PPPOE)
Error 651: The modem (or other connecting device) has reported an error.

Then I get an option to enable logging,
And the options to redial or close.
I just selected close and my facebook game ran as normal and so did my partners, If i were on ffxi at that point I'd red dot dc.
I hope that is a little more helpful.
Thanks again. /salute

[cidbahamut]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

Does the issue persist when you connect directly to the box your ISP provided?

I'm running out of ideas for troubleshooting this thing.

[Aeni]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

It sounds like somebody is running torrents on your network. The quick disconnections are hardly perceptible outside of FFXI, but FFXI will drop you completely each and every time. I think the problem is simple: your PC is old as balls.

I second this sentiment. And Cid's right ... the patch that SE put out to allow FFXI to run under Vista and Win 7, especially in the 64-bit environment, is essentially emulating. And if your PC cannot run an emulator like PCSX2 (PS2 Emulator) smoothly, then you're going to need more than just minor updates. The technique is no different than what Atlus uses to emulate PS2 on the PS3 (So they can run Persona 3 FES on the PS3 without having to rewrite the code completely from the ground up) Afterall, the game is old, subscription, while stable, isn't exactly making SE rich and therefore they cannot afford further development to re-program the game, tens of thousands of files, all of the expansions and content, to make it work for the aforementioned OS.

Maybe a good time as any to just abandon the game

[Satori]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

I'm not sure what you mean by the torrents thing.
That's downloading something using a program like bitlord right?
If that's what you meant then, neither the pc or laptop download stuff. Aside from updates from software makers and ffxi nothing gets downloaded into either computer.

I've got the game up and running and looking ok. reformatted both the laptop and pc but i still have trouble holding a stable connection. I'm waiting to hear from my isp guys about sending me a new modem/router thing.

I disconnected the router and plugged the pc directly into the modem and so far updating ffxi the updates are going through no problem and not had the diconnect problem yet.
So I think it's the router. Which is going to be a headscratcher for sure.

[Satori]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

I'm so tired of computers lol.
I was playing the 3rd broken sword last night and I realised that I had music, sound effects but the characters had no voices.I took a look at the ingame options to see if I had toggled them off but I hadn't. I log into ffxi and my sound is distorted, no ding when I target myself or others no whoosh when I cancel/back. Battle music ever so quiet fist I thought it was my speakers so turned them up and realised some sound effects worked like in battle but deploy was silent. I thought this isnt right so logged out. went to youtube most videos the sound is quiet you can hear stuff sort of ifyou turn the speakers up very loud. but you hear that empty noise of the speakers being on/humming sort of noise.
I clicked gangam style and that sounds scrambled with the audio cutting in and out, and making a noise kinda like dial up or when in the old days fast forwarding a playing tape.
I thought straight away that somewhing with broken sword had buggered my sound driver so I uninstalled it and put it in again but the problem persisted. I di that a couple of times incase I had borked the instalation but it was no use.
I ran every scan I could and came up clean as a whislte.
I reformatted it again hoping it would tell my pc to sort itself out on a new installation. But it's not worked.
Any ideas guys?
I can't believe it, I've only recently had it back from the repair guy replacing my graphics card and internal fan thingy's. I'm worried I'm going to have to fork out a truckload of cash again, The last guy was not cheap at all.
I'm hoping I can find a solution on here, I tried googling it but had no luck finding problems similar to mine.

[Raydeus]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

If a clean installation and a new driver didn't solve the issue chances are your sound card/chip has gone poof.

On the bright side there are plenty of good and cheap sound cards all over the place which are also extremely easy to install.

If you use decent headphones I suggest a PCI ASUS Xonar card, they are pretty good and deliver some great quality sound for stereo output. Or, if you are using a sound system then I recommend any 24-bit 7.1 Audigy card from the last 3 or 4 years, as any of them will do a very good job while being pretty cheap.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

Hmmm, that's weird. My initial guess was going to be changing the settings in broken sword altered your system settings directly somehow, but if a reformat didn't fix things it might be hardware related.

First things first: double check the wires on your speakers to make sure they aren't loose or something.

Second step: if you've got a pair of headphones laying around try plugging them in and see if the sound is all screwed up on them too. If it is then your speakers themselves aren't the problem.

If you're getting bad noise coming through the headphones then it's likely your sound card/on-board sound card(built into the motherboard). If this is the case then you've got a few options. You can get a new soundcard and install it, which is easy enough if you're comfortable opening your case. Alternatively you can get a USB sound card and route all your audio through that. USB sound cards are a really easy fix and pretty cheap too. It might not be something you want as a long term solution as the sound quality won't be as good as a dedicated soundcard and it looks tacky while tacking up a USB slot, but it's a quick fix and won't break the bank. I use one myself for Skype, since when I first started FFXI my friend and I chatted it up but my game sound always came through and I couldn't figure out how to fix it, so eventually I just routed all skype audio/input through the USB sound card. It was a terrible workaround, but whatever.

One last thing: are you sure you've got all the drivers for the machine installed? Like, drivers that came with the motherboard/pre-built monstrosity from Dell or whatever? If you don't have those that might be making things weird. I think Windows has generic drivers that'll get you by on most stuff, but it's always good to have drivers that are specifically for your hardware if you've got access to them. Might just be a shot in the dark though.

[Satori]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

Well that was weird.
I just tried checking my wires touched it and got that static sort of noise. Just pulled up youtube and went to gangam to see if it sounded scrambled and it has played straight away no problems. Hmmmmn O.o !!!!

Very weird. So now I'm thinking either my speaker wires have a break somewhere inside, the jack plug thingy is broken, the port it goes into on its way out or the connector thing popped out on it's own?

very odd lol.
Now to install ffxi for the 2nd time this month lol.

I'd love to be in a position where I could just buy a new machine, She's been good to me though I'll give her that.
You'd think with 3 jobs plus ake making I would be able to. Training to be a nurse really did a number on my finances, Plus I used to be irresponsible and take out loan after loan and got myself into serious debt. I have about 3 years to go until I'm clear.

Thank you so much for the help I really appreciate it.
I definately have to buy you a beer, If you're ever in birmingham gimme a shout, Uk not Alabama

[Aeni]

Re: Calling all Tech people, This computer is melting my brain.

Wiring in headphones/earphones are CHEAP and easy to break. I've blown through 3 headphones in the past year due to this issue.